


Appreciate the Art

by Alexander_Wesker



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Blood, Disturbed art, Horror, I really love Stefano's Art, Introspection, Macabre, Macabre photography, One Shot Collection, Pre-Game(s), Roses, and i hope someone like it as much as me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-04 10:05:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12768717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexander_Wesker/pseuds/Alexander_Wesker
Summary: My name is Stefano Valentini and art is in the eye of the beholder





	1. First Photo

Subject: Emily Lewis

  
Emily... Emily always was beautifull in my eyes. Whether she was smiling when we were conversing or that she was simply staying still in front of the lens of my camera.  
I had always loved how my studio's sanguine light shone on her skin, painting it of crimson.  
I could not allow time to ruin a beauty so rare as hers and at the same time I wanted to be the only one to have the privilege of capturing her last moment on film. I wanted to make it eternal.  
I did not lie to her when I asked her to come to my studio, she agreed, without any doubt bothering her even though the time was a bit late and it was not during our work.  
I did not lie to her when I tied her wrists, tight enough for prevent her to escape, but not enough to leave any marks on her delicate skin.  
I did not lie to her as I explained what I was going to do.  
And I admit I had smiled when I started the cut , her crimson blood flowing from the cut dense as paint but much more vivid, she yelled, her voice mixing so, oh, so sweetly to the notes of the Serenade for strings in C major, composition 48 movement 1, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky.  
I wanted to be able to immortalize the exact moment in which the light in her eyes had vanished. This is my only regret to her, not being able to capture the instant in which she was togheter alive and dead, it would have been an invaluable piece. A unique and inimitable artwork.  
But I could not, but although I could not capture that moment I knew that Emily would be perfect, even more beautiful than she already was, in the composition she would have been the undisputed star.  
I removed her head, untied her wrists, smiling again at my meticulousness when I saw I was able to not leave a single mark on her skin. I changed her dress, from the lightgreen that she wore to one of a rich light blue that in its contrast harmonized perfectly with the red of her blood. I wrapped her neck with a silver beaded necklace with an emerald pendant, which, if she had been alive, would have look lovely with the green of her eyes.  
I adjusted her pose so that she seemed to be sitting confidently but had a relaxed appearance, I folded her hands on her lap, before I took a step back to admire my work, though still incomplete. I was satisfied with how she looked, she almost looked like a portrait of a noble woman of the past.  
Only then I did dedicate myself to the last part, the most important and delicate, the one that would make her perfect. I prepared my roses, ten, their own number saying that I considered her perfect, and put their stems without thorns in her throat, left open by the decapitation, one by one.  
I found myself smiling again, as I devoted myself to the shot that would make her immortal and eternal.  
For the first time since _that fateful day_ I felt satisfied.

  
\---

  
I am Stefano Valentini and art is in the eyes of the beholder.


	2. First Article

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was eager to share my new work with the world. Neophytes. Philistines ... Fools ... They feared what they could not comprehend ...

Serial Killer

  
I was not surprised when I was informed, and then I was asked some questions from the police. I imagined that they would try to contact me, after all I was Emily's dearest friend.  
I answered with my tone filled with sorrow, to their questions, not even pretending my emotions, especially to the thought that the hands of those policemen had touched and ruined my composition. And I had to hold back from catching the wrist of one of them when he took my beloved camera with no delicacy, turning it around in his hands as if looking for something. This, however, did not prevent me from alerting him, with a tone that was tactfully but yet cold to lay it where he had taken it.  
It was a few days later, after this event, that my gaze stuck in a newspaper article ... that by the irony of the fate, was about my dear Emily. I quickly read those printed lines, feeling a hot spark of fury blossom inside my chest.  
Serial killer?  
They were defining me a serial killer? They have exchanged my art for ... for the mania of a murderer?  
I was offended and annoyed. How did they dare ?!  
How did they dare to exchange my refined art, which complimented the beauty of death, for the sick ritual of a madman?  
It was outrageous.  
I did not look again at the article as I walked away trying to clear my mind and suffocate the anger as I thought about what my next composition would be.

Although not for the first time, I was reminded of how much susceptible, pliant and ignorant the masses were.

\---

  
I was eager to share my new work with the world. Neophytes. Philistines ... Fools ... They feared what they could not comprehend ...


	3. Second Photo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The most seducting thing about art is the personality of the artist himself

Subject: Elisa Xavier

Though I was bothered by the fact that they had traded my art for the ritual of a murderer, this did not stop me from continuing to create it.  
I had a clear image in my mind and I was quivering with the desire to see it become real, but I had to keep control, so far none of the models I had met were worthy of being the subject of my new composition.  
I do not know how much bland faces went by me, how many women with shrill tones and appearance that wanted to impress that instead make them easily to be forgotten. Expecting and waiting for the right subject to appear, while within me this ... longing, this desire to create grew and grew.  
Until she came, Elisa Xavier, a young Spanish girl who, in her looks, reminded me of Emily. Her brown hair and pale skin, but where my Emily's eyes were emerald, her were shard of ice embedded in her irises.  
It's her.  
It's her, I thought. I remember that I smiled to her and asked her to come to my studio the following Thursday.

I spent the days before her return to perfect my composition, to reflect, combine and match the contrasts I would have created. I thought about how to harmonize the composition and how to capture it in its perfect instant.  
I doubted Elisa would be as beautiful as Emily, but in death, I would have made her splendid.

The day came in a hurry, not as much as I wanted but it was still enough. I asked her to sit, there in the same place where I had transformed Emily into an artwork.  
Elisa ... Elisa was more combative than my Emily, I tried to hurt her as little as possible while I was transforming her from subject to material. I did not want her fights to bring me to leave some horrible mark on her, it would have ruin the composition and I would not let her.  
Little by little her struggles stopped, along with her movements. She was finally ready to become something more.  
I was removing her head, as I had done with Emily's, when I noticed that the cut was not as good as I wanted, her agitation had caused those unpleasant indentations.  
I felt the irritation, already present, increase. And I almost thought about getting rid of her and starting again, that the police thought of theur serial killer, I was not going to create something with the ruined material.  
But after having matured that thought, I changed my mind. I had created that composition exclusively for her and it would be a shame not to capture her beauty. I would have found the way to hide those little flaws.  
I changed her dress, from the red one she wore and that distracted from what would have been the focus of the composition to one of a blue shade darker than the one that Emily had worn. The dark blue would still point out the contrast with the vivid red of her blood but it would not attract too much attention, distracting from the key elements that would distinguish Elisa from Emily.  
The pose that I made her was different from Emily's static and noble one, it looked more tired and almost desolate. In one hand, I placed a pair of scissors with blood-stained blades, and in the other an empty marble-colored mask.  
Finally, I placed the roses, as I had done with Emily, giving them the same attention and care. Slipping each stem in its place.  
I put some rose petals, five to be exact, on the skirt of her dress. To simulate at the same time both her blood and figuratively, her beauty that fades.

Elisa could not be as beautiful as Emily, but what I had made her made her equal.  
Once the angle of my camera was correct, I immortalized that perfect moment. I did not realize that I had caught the fall of a petal that had been suspended in the middle of the air.  
Crystallized like a fly in amber.

\---

  
The most seducting thing about art is the personality of the artist himself


	4. The Exhibition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I put my heart and my soul into my work and have lost my mind in the process

Philistine Critics

  
I do not think that, in my whole life, I had felt so much anticipation before then, I do not think I've ever heard that much after.  
My first exhibit at Krimson City, everything had been placed and organized exactly as I had requested. The low lights, would only illuminate the photos but not hide them with their glow, which with their crimson light seemed to fill the halls with blood , well matching the compositions they lightened.  
The Serenade for Strings in G Major of Pyotr Tchaikovsky playing in the background filling the halls with its pleasing notes.  
And I was waiting for the gallery to be open to the public, anticipating the moment in which the crowd's eyes would see my works.  
I imagined what marvels would light in their eyes once they were faced with so much beauty. Not all the inhabitants of Krimson City could be ignorant fools like the cops who had found the remains of my compositions.

I was wrong.

The only comments I received were negative critics. The philistine opinions of those critics called me a madman, a freak obsessed with violence that objectified women by using them in his horrendous compositions.  
A new anger, this time more cold than the previous one, grew in my chest. I listened to their comments, my expression forcibly empty.  
Within me, I told to myself that I would make them pay for those so vulgar, so dull comments.

It was toward the end of the visiting hour of the gallery that I saw her, one of those vulgar critics, her name was Elizabeth Bolth as I would have discovered in her article. I could not stop myself from smiling, a smile that was as sinister as barely visible.

I had found my next model.  
She would understand what true art was, sure she would understand, after all she would have become it.

  
\---

  
I put my heart and my soul into my work and have lost my mind in the process


	5. Third Photo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Photography is an art of observation. It has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them

Subject: Elizabeth Bolth

  
The plans I had for Elizabeth were very different from those I had for Emily and Elisa. She did not match the aesthetic canon of my models, but I knew I would be able to enhance her appearance and her last moment as I had done before.  
I also knew it would be much harder to bring her to my studio. If I had asked for a meeting with her, she would be suspicious and it will attracted attention.  
But I had choose her and that meant that she would not escape, no matter what I should have done.  
She was destined to be my art and that would her become.  
I remember that this was the first time I got to have a subject outside of my studio. But I found the situation quite appropriate.  
I felt fortunate in discovering that Miss Bolth had a basement in her small provincial home. This would provide me with the perfect background and the place to work undisturbed.  
I took her down, once ready to be transformed into my work of art.  
Of course I did not have all my tools available, but that did not mean that I would ruin such an opportunity.  
The little critic turned into the work of the artist to her so despised, ironic. A small smile bent my lips as I looked around looking for the remaining materials for my composition.  
I find them though with difficulty and knowing that my little critic would not have been perfect and finished like Emily and Elisa, but it went more than good, she had criticized my art and did not deserve the perfection that instead Emily and Elisa incarnated.  
I opened her eyes, letting the blood go through her cheeks as tears, staining her pale, by death, skin with thin crimson lines. Then I proceeded to tie a black silk scarf around her head, like a blidfold to hide her empty orbits stained with crimson.  
I changed her dress with one that I thought was best suited to my composition, it was black as the previous one, but the skirt that stood before the knee was swollen with satin corsets.  
Her pose was disarranged, compared to Emily and Elisa's one, like that of a broken puppet or an abandoned doll. Made in place thanks to iron wire. Strengthening the image of the puppet I wanted to create.  
I bent the end of each wire in a hook and put it carefully in the small, barely visible, holes I had practiced at the points it needed to support.

My little critic was ready.  
I smiled while I shot two photos, both from different angles. The first one, taken from the right, was darker and that was the one that I was going to take with me, the other, taken from the left, was better illuminated and that was what I would have left her.  
In both, however, she was marvelous, a broken puppet, an abandoned doll, one of my works.  
My little critic was really beautifull.  
Again, I smiled, I was able to transform anyone into a wonderful work worthy of being remembered forever.

  
\---

  
Photography is an art of observation. It has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them

 


	6. Welcome to Union

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone finds world horrific, for me it is a world of beauty, full of pure creation, that is limited only by my imagination. A world whose very fabric I can shape.

Theodore Wallace

I do not remember exactly when my road crossed over with Theodore Wallace's.  
I do not remember what he said, but I remember that his words fascinated me.  
A place where I would be free to create my art.  
A place where my art would be appreciated.  
I knew I could not refuse.  
I remember that the second time that I and Theodore met , I was going to tell him I would accept his proposal and that of his organization.  
I was willing to become 'their' artist, until this would have given me complete freedom.  
I remember leaving Krimson City and then, nothing but the feeling of falling.  
And fall.  
And fall, as in an infinite abyss.  
I remember wishing to have Wallace with me just to kill him, not to turn him into art, but to kill him, brutally, violently ... because he had deceived me.  
And at that moment I stopped falling. And Wallace was in front of me in the darkness around us. I immediately noticed that his gaze was off, empty as if his eyes were made of glass.  
I wanted to kill him anyway, whether he was real or not.  
It was at that moment that I realized that in that void, I could create and change everything.  
And on the blood of Theodore Wallace's illusion I built the foundations of my Domain, the Artist's Domain. A place where I could preserve and protect my works.  
It was only then that I realized the existence of something else in that void, a city. Union was its name.  
I remember that I smiled at the thought of being able to find subjects for my compositions that were not created by me.

  
\---

  
Someone finds world horrific, for me it is a world of beauty, full of pure creation, that is limited only by my imagination. A world whose very fabric I can shape.

\---

  
_Core misallignment._   
_Make report immediately._


	7. Fourth Photo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from photograph.

Subject: Isabel Garcìa

  
Union had something that was clearly artificial, I could feel it, see it almost. It was as if the air was saturated by an aura of staticity that was not present in reality.  
The weather was perfect, too much and the sun always shone in an extremely precise way as if it was calculated to shine with its rays at that precise angle.  
The wind itself was always mild and quiet.  
It seemed all too plastic, not a world where true beauty could reside and in which the present was a poor plastic imitation of what it should have been.  
I was getting annoyed by all of that static utopian perfection, those indolent and empty smiles.  
I was thinking of leaving that pale imitation of the world and returning to my perfect models. When I noticed her.  
Actually was she that noticed me. Isabel, spanish on her father's side and american on her mother's. She had inherited her father's golden skin tone and her eyes were of a beautiful shade of blue . As if sapphires had been caught in her eyes.  
Of course I did not agree with her style, a t-shirt that was too wide and a pair of jeans, which did not looked lovely at all with her appearance.  
I remember that we talked and that she offered to be my guide in the city since she lived there for nearly three years, I remember that while we were talking, I studied her and thought about the right way to use her once she became the subject of my composition.  
The missing tile for my creation came to its place when she told me that she was a ballerina. Classical dance, not latin-american.  
In the weeks that took me to gain her confidence, I knew better Unity, and learned to manipulate its reality as I did in my Domain.  
And then I took her into my Domain, in a flash of bright blue that was similar to Isabel's eye color, I decided that I loved that color and that I would keep it.  
I remember her confused and shocked look as she wondered how I did what I did and what I was.  
I remember that I briefly chuckled to that gaze that became increasingly full of dismay.  
I remember letting her run away, delighted to see her try to escape my Domain, losing more and more in the corridors decorated with my new works.  
I remember catching her and dislocating her arms, grabbing them and pushing her forward as I held her arms backwards, I remember doing it with the same sadistic joy of a child that has captured a butterfly and teared its wings.  
I remember her tears, which as glass gems slipped out of her eyes. Her prayers were stifled by the music that filled my Domain.  
I remember that with time her screams annoyed me, I remember cutting her tongue, thinking that, after all, a statue did not need a tongue.  
The pose that I made her had, gave the impression that she was dancing. Her body, covered in a white dress, with a heart-shaped neckline decorated with small hard stones that sparkled under the spotlight, the skirt was a wave of voile and satin that perfectly enveloped her legs and it continued in a voile train that would be almost invisible if it as the rim had not been spotted by the crimson of her blood. Her arms were covered up in the elbow by white satin gloves and the bow I had made them was too high for it to be natural, but from my perspective, it created wonderfully the image of ethereal elegance that she was supposed to represent.  
Finally, to crown her princely appearance, I had crowned her with a tiara that at the center had a sapphire that dominated the other stones and looked lovely with her eyes, now empty staring at a undefined point without actually seeing.  
At her feet, the floor was covered with a carpet of rose petal , red as the blood that mingled with them.  
I took a photo, desiring that she would be crystallized in that perfect moment I had created. Exactly as I had done with my previous composition I had called "Rebirth".  
Isabel was wrapped in a glassy blue light.  
I looked at her once more, and with that blue light she looked like a perfect Cinderella, froze forever in the last moment before midnight, regal, but with an expression of dismay and terror on her face.

  
\---

  
Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from photograph.


	8. Perfect Creation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything has beauty but not everyone can see it

Obscura

  
Obscura. That name had come to my mind with an image and a purpose. And my attempt to see where I could do into my domain.  
See what I could do and what I could not do.  
See if I could give life to my creations.  
My Obscura was beautiful, an overwhelming and elegant creature.  
At the time it was held suspended on the tips of her feet by thin metal cables.  
Her long and thin arms, but strong, supported by steel cables and slats, her feminine and graceful bust ended in three legs arranged like a tripod. But the element that characterized her was her face entirely replaced by a camera.  
My beautiful Obscura was there, still motionless like my other works.  
I could not help but observe and adore her, she was perfect in every possible way.  
I caressed one side of her face, earnestly wishing that my beautiful Obscura was alive. I wished that she could move and be free to do my will.  
For a few moments, nothing happened, and I let out a disappointed sigh. It just seemed that my sweet Obscura was destined to remain just one of my works.  
I was about to move my hand from her face when my creature moved her face, pressing it against my caress. As her loud and yet sweet voice filled the air.  
My beautiful Obscura.  
Oh, my dear, we have so much to do, I thought.

  
\---

  
Everything has beauty but not everyone can see it


End file.
